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Getting Started ​

Install Crush first, any method you like, then come back here. From zero to your first prompt in about two minutes.

1. Pick a model ​

Run crush and the model picker shows up on first launch. The quickest way to get started is to choose a Hyper model — follow the steps to authenticate and you'll be good to go. You can also press ctrl+l any time to bring the picker back.

The first-run model picker

Hyper, from Charm, is the official Crush provider. It's subscription-based, with a free tier, and optimized for Crush. It's privacy focused, with zero data retention (ZDR) is and designed to comply with GDPR. More on Hyper.

Charm Hyper

2. Say hello ​

Type a prompt and hit enter. At the bottom of the screen is your prompt box — and if you'd rather write a longer message in your editor of choice, ctrl+o opens it in $EDITOR.

Crush doing its thing

Let's have Crush build something. A small CLI that uses Lip Gloss and gives you random facts about pigeons:

md
Let's design a small CLI in Go with lipgloss that has some neat facts
on pigeons and then renders a random one whenever the CLI is ran

The permission popup ​

What you'll notice pretty quickly is the permission popup. By default, Crush can only read your files — installation and edit commands need your consent first. Switch between the options with the arrow keys, approve for the session or just once, or deny. (Impatient? See Permissions for auto-approving the safe stuff.)

Permission popup

Queue it up ​

Crush busy? No problem — write out your message and hit enter and it goes into a queue, sent to Crush whenever it becomes free next:

md
Can you make sure you use some gorgeous #0BC161 in the CLI?
It matches the plumage of some pigeons :)

Queued messages

Bring your own provider ​

Not a Hyper person? No problem. You can also use Crush with many other providers such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter and so on:

  1. Press ctrl+l to open the model picker.
  2. Choose the provider of your choice.
  3. Paste your API key.

Or skip the picker entirely with an environment variable:

bash
export HYPER_API_KEY="sk-hyper-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

See Providers for the full story, including local models.

WARNING

Productivity may increase when using Crush and you may find yourself nerd sniped when first using the application. If the symptoms persist, join the Slack or Discord and nerd snipe the rest of us.